Note 76.2 — Chapter IV · THE INCIDENT OF THE SUPERNATURAL BIRTH IN MÄRCHEN.

In India the ordinary mode of supernatural conception is by the eating of fruit. A few examples will suffice. I have in a previous chapter related Somadeva’s tale of Indívarasena and his brother, who were born in consequence of their mother’s eating two heavenly fruits. The Kathá-sarit-Ságara, or Ocean of the Streams of Story, contains other narratives to the same effect. Concerning the birth of the famous hero Vikramáditya, it tells us that Siva appeared to his mother in a dream and gave her a fruit.76.2 Another childless queen, after propitiating Siva, receives a fruit in a dream from “a certain man with matted locks,” no doubt a fakir.76.3 In modern folklore Siva appears in the garb of a jogí, or fakir, to a childless king and hands him four fruits, which the queen is to eat the following Sunday before sunrise, and she will then bear four sons, who will be exceedingly clever and good.77.1 Elsewhere we are told of a rajah, who has seven wives, but no offspring. He is given by a fakir a stick, with instructions to knock down seven mangoes from a certain tree and, catching them as they fall, to take them home to his seven wives. Six of the wives eat the seven mangoes; and the seventh wife is reduced to eating one of the mango-stones thrown away by the other wives. All seven give birth to sons; but the son of the seventh is born in monkey-form. He is, of course, the hero, his brothers playing the same part towards him as those of Joseph, or those of Khodadad in the Arabian Nights.77.2 A barren woman in another tale goes to Mahadeo, or Siva. He meets with her in his customary disguise as a fakir, and gives her a mango, whereof she and two other women, who desire the same boon but have been deterred from reaching the god by the dangers of the way, are to eat. She is blessed with a son, and the other women with a daughter each.77.3 Mangoes, indeed, seem the usual prescription in Indian folktales.